


Growing Out Like Healing

by NoHolds



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, alt ending, everyone is alive somehow, pricefield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHolds/pseuds/NoHolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Chloe is lit soft by the winter sun, looking fourteen again, roots showing, and Max watches her with a dry, dry mouth and writes the squeeze in her stomach off as nostalgia.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>AKA: Arcadia Bay makes it out of the storm mostly unscathed, but Max and Chloe don't. As the town rebuilds, they heal together, and get to know the people they've both become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Out Like Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Fic based on this lovely piece of art by Mollifiable: mollifiable.tumblr.com/post/133235592332/assorted-doods

Max first notices in December, two months after the storm blows over, Arcadia Bay still rebuilding.

Chloe's gotten a job working in construction, clearing up debris and pouring concrete, and when Max comes to meet her after school one day there is cement dust in her hair.

It makes Max laugh, breath fogging in the winter chill, and she half-reaches out to touch Chloe's hair before letting her hand drop awkwardly into the space between them. “You've got something-” Max says, instead, pointing to her own hair.

Chloe laughs, too, takes off that omnipresent beanie to shake the dust out. Her roots are showing blonde, an inch of new-growth usually hidden by the hat. It makes Max want to touch Chloe's hair, again, but she keeps her hand where it is.

“Ready?”

Chloe nods, pulls her beanie back on, and Max walks her home.

They do this most days, walk home together, even though it's out of both of their ways.

To catch up on the five years they'd missed, Max had once explained. Chloe'd laughed and called her pretentious, but she never misses a day.

* * *

It first snows in late January (it is the first snow that counts, anyway, the first one that matters, a proper winter snow), and Chloe calls Max as the early flakes drift out of a cloudy sky.

“Chloe, I'm _in_ class,” Max whispers, and if Ms. Grant looks at her sharply, Max doesn't notice.

 _(It's like she's a whole different person,_ people has said of Max, after the storm, _You're like a superhero,_ people has told Max at the Vortex Club party, and teachers don't pick on her so much anymore. No one does)

“Whatever, Caulfield, skip.” Chloe's voice is staticy and too-loud through Max's phone. “Blackwell owes you anyway.”

Max sighs. Glances up at Ms. Grant, and out the window at the snow.

“Hypothetically,” she says, “Why am I skipping this time?”

“It's _snowing,_ Max!”

Max can hear Chloe's grin through the phone, wolfish, like they're kids again (she couldn't say no to Chloe back then, either).

“I'll be in the parking lot in 10.”

Chloe's _whoop_ is ear-shattering through the phone, but Max finds herself smiling as she slips out of the classroom under Ms. Grant's disapproving eye.

They drive to Chloe's house through blowing snow, fat wet flakes clogging the windshield almost faster then the cheap old windscreen wiper can compensate.

Chloe grins the whole way, happier than Max has seen her in _months._

If autumn is Max's season, winter is Chloe's. All whites and blacks and blues, and at the wheel in the winter's first blizzard she is relaxed. Smiling.

It makes Max's chest tighten, makes her flush with warmth despite the truck's broken radiator.

Max smiles over at Chloe lit soft by winter sun, looking fourteen again, roots showing, and writes the squeeze in her stomach off as nostalgia.

* * *

The next big snowfall is two weeks later, on a Saturday, a proper storm, and when Chloe drags Max outside at eight in the morning, Max can't see three feet in front of her face.

Chloe's giggling like a little kid, a winter jacket pulled hastily over her pajamas, feet bare under her winter boots. She's trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

Max blinks groggily; they'd been up till three am the night before, just talking, but as soon as the clouds had gathered that morning Chloe'd forced Max outside.

“Get your head in the _game,_ Coldfield!” Chloe hollers, and nails Max in the side of the head with a snowball.

The pun pulls a laugh out of Max, and she turns, tackles Chloe over into a snowbank. Chloe lets out a startled shout and then laughs the whole way down, breath hanging foggy in the air.

A huge gust of fresh powder drifts up around them as they land, and Max looks down to see Chloe's fingers are blue around the nails, shaking with the cold (she'd never worn gloves, when they were kids, no matter how low the temperature dropped. Another thing that hadn't changed). When she sees max looking, Chloe tangles their fingers together, grinning and breathless in the snow.

And Chloe's beanie'd fallen off in their tumble, and there are snowflakes melting in the sunshine-blonde of her roots (her hair is getting _long_ , Max thinks, inanely, mouth gone desert-dry), and her breath is fogging gently in the cold.

The easy nostalgia of ten minutes ago melts like snow caught on bare skin, and in it's place is something warm, uncertain. Chloe's eyes are bright with it, and Max almost has to look away, overwhelmed with-

with _something._ And she's still straddling Chloe in the snowbank, their fingers tangled together, but now Max is seeing every detail in frame-perfect clarity, the way she does right before she takes a picture;

Chloe's short blond eyelashes, the red-cold of her cheeks, the way her lips are parted, just slightly, the way Chloe's bright eyes are settled on Max's own lips-

Max takes a deep breath, leans in just as Chloe turns away, swallowing hard.

She sits up, abruptly, dumping Max off her lap into the snow.

Chloe seems so _small,_ all of a sudden, to Max, so _sad,_ ragged and young and mourning more than Max has ever lost, eyes bright now for an entirely different reason.

Max helps Chloe to her feet, tries to ignore the way her stomach knots when Chloe keeps hold of her hand.

* * *

The snow's all turned to slush by March, ice and brown old snow clogging the streets, and Chloe pulls up next to Max in a shower of frigid water.

Max scowls, flicks slush at Chloe as she slides into the Passenger seat.

“So how was Blackwell this week?” Chloe's rosy-cheeked with cold, grinning lazily over at Max. The truck reeks of weed.

Max pulls a face. “Like, half my dorm mates have mono, and the other half have pneumonia.”

“More like Hackwell then,” cracks Chloe, and Max groans, lets her head thud back against the car seat.

* * *

“So,” Chloe says, when they're warm and dry in her bedroom, “Mono huh? You seem pretty healthy. Super-Max not getting any tail?”

“Gross, Chloe,” Max groans. “And kissing isn't even the only way you can get mono.”

“Oh no?” Chloe wiggles her eyebrows and Max's stomach goes tight, like it'd been doing around Chloe so often, of late.

Chloe'd gotten a haircut- she did it it herself, probably- trimmed her hair ragged and uneven back to shoulder length, and it's strange. Max had gotten so used to seeing her with long hair.

This length is awkward, though, and there's always hair hanging over Chloe's eyes, so without thinking Max reaches out to brush it away.

Her hand lingers a moment too long, because Chloe's hair is soft, the blue in it near half grown out, and the air goes _heavy,_ again, and Max wants to kiss Chloe.

It's not as much of a surprise as Max thinks it maybe ought to be, more like something sliding into place. Max wants to kiss Chloe.

Like, _really_   wants to kiss her, more than she's wanted anything for a long time probably.

But Chloe's leaning into Max's hand with bright, wet eyes, and so Max just rubs her fingers against Chloe's scalp, like Max's mom used to do when Max had headaches, and Chloe _sighs_ like the weight of the world's just slid away.

* * *

Max doesn't really ever _stop_ wanting to kiss Chloe, after that. It just never feels like the right time.

* * *

Winter in Arcadia Bay is long, wet, and tenacious.

There's still a chill in the air in April, still frost on the ground every morning, still the hard, dirty remains of snowbanks tripping people on sidewalks.

They're in Chloe's room, again, getting drunk because Chloe had sent Max a picture of a bottle of whiskey with the caption “if you don't share this with me I'm gonna drink the whole thing myself”.

They spend a lot of time in Chloe's room, now, Chloe usually getting high on her bed while Max pretends to do her homework, so there's a warm sort of familiarity to it.

Max is warm for an entirely different reason, that night, drunk and flush with heat despite the attic-chill of Chloe's room.

Chloe is leaning up against the wall with the half-empty bottle of whiskey clutched purposelessly in one hand. She's had more to drink than Max has, but where Max has gotten increasingly giggly and relaxed as the night wore on, Chloe's gotten quiet.

She's been quiet all month. Mourning the passing of winter, maybe, Max thinks, and then she thinks about how to capture that, in Chloe.

She takes more photos of Chloe than anyone else, but they never seem to come out right. It's not that Chloe doesn't look _good_ in the photos- she _always_ looks good- it's that Mac can never capture all of what Chloe is. What Chloe _means_ to her.

Right now, thought-

Max looks at Chloe and pulls out her camera with drunk-clumsy hands. Roots the colour of Autumn sun, the ends of her hair still winter blue, looking coldly out the window and flushed with drink, Chloe is every part the springtime.

Max _clicks_ out a photo, and Chloe glances over at the flash. Spits, “Stop just _staring,_ Caulfield. If you're gonna kiss me, fucking _kiss_ me.”

Max blanches, for a second, but she's hazy and bold with this heady mix of exhaustion and whiskey, and she crosses the distance between her and Chloe in three short steps.

It is nothing like their first kiss, a dare on a drowsy morning, drenched in October sunlight. This kiss is a sharp, biting thing, and Chloe's nails scrape bluntly through Max's hair, and Max sucks a hairdye-blue bruise into the pale of Chloe's neck.

Chloe drags Max back up into a bruising kiss, bites sharply at Max's lip, because Chloe is not, has never been, gentle, and her kisses are not gentle, either. She grinds her thigh up between Max's legs, moves to bite a mark into the base of Max's throat.

Max's mind fades into this pleasant haze of drink and teeth and tongue and the heady, rust-smoke taste of Chloe's mouth until-

until Chloe grabs Max by the wrists to pin her arms above her head, and Max feels duct tape around her hands, for just a second, gets a whiff of the sharply antiseptic smell of the Darkroom, and she's back there, with Jefferson, just for a second-

when Max jerks away, Chloe drops her arms and steps back, breathing hard, hair messy.

“Not bad, Caulfield,” She slurs, actually bites her lip, but Max is too shaken to respond.

* * *

The next morning is the first _really_ warm day that year.

Max wakes up with a dry mouth and a head full of cotton, pads down the stairs to find Joyce already up with breakfast.

“Morning, Max. Get you anything?”

“Orange juice?” Max croaks, voice hoarse and sandy-dry.

“You know where to find it.”

Max pours herself a glass, sits across from Joyce at the table.

When Joyce glances up from her paper, she lets out a gentle, southern sort of laugh. “Nice Hickey, Max.” She says good naturally, and when Max goes red, reaches to cover it up, Joyce waves her away.

“Don't worry about it. I need to remember that you girls are growing up. Gettin' boyfriends and getting into trouble.”

Max thinks of Chloe's teeth at her jaw, of Chloe's breath hot on Max's skin, her lips sharp with whiskey.

“Uh, yeah,” she manages, and Joyce goes back to her paper.

“Just be careful. I hear mono's going around at Blackwell.”

* * *

Chloe finally drags herself out of bed around eleven, after Joyce has already gone to work.

“Come on,” she says to Max, “Let's go for a drive.”

They end up at the boardwalk, watching the ocean from the beach like they have so many times before.

The silence between them stretches thin and brittle until Chloe _sighs,_ the breath rattling through her like a door in a hurricane.

“April twenty second,” she says solemnly, takes a breath like she's gonna say something else but just holds it instead.

When she shoves herself upright with a violent sort of sigh, Max follows, grabs Chloe's hands to stop her from turning away. “Hey,” she says, soft as she can manage. “Chloe, what's wrong?”

Chloe shrugs. “It's, uh-” she clears her throat. “It's been a year since Rachel disappeared.”

“Oh, Chloe-” Max leans in for a kiss, meaning to be chaste, comforting, but Chloe tips her head away.  
“I'm sorry,” she says. “I was just wasted last night, I'm not-”

Max nods. “Okay, Chloe. Whatever you need.” She tugs Chloe into a hug, instead, slowly, gives Chloe plenty of room to pull away.

Chloe nods, takes a deep shaky breath, and clings on to Max like she'll drown if she doesn't.

* * *

The last of the snow finally melts in May, and Chloe's shed her jacket in celebration, even if it isn't strictly warm enough for tanktops yet.

Max is leaving town again- just for a little while, but the first time she's been back to Seattle since Chloe and her were reunited- and Chloe's come to the bus station to see her off.

“Don't you forget to write this time, Max Caulfield.” Chloe says, and Max laughs.

“It's only a week, Chloe.”

Most of Chloe's hair is long enough to pull back, now, blue only for a few inches at the ends, though her bangs are still too short for a ponytail, blown messy in the spring breeze.

Max laughs, pushes hair back out of Chloe's eyes. Stops for a moment to take in the way the warm springtime sun lights up Chloe's face, all gold and shadows. Like a renaissance painting.

Chloe's fiddling with her lighter, nervously, and Max puts her hand over the lighter to stop Chloe's fidgeting.

“I promise I'll write.” She says, and when Chloe gnaws at her lip and glances away, Max reaches to brush away Chloe's hair again, tips her head so she's looking at Max. Chloe's eyes are bright with tears, and Max lets her hand linger. “Hey. It's only a week.”

When the Greyhound pulls into the bus station a moment later, Chloe turns to press a kiss into Max's palm. “I know, Max.” She says, takes a deep breath. Cracks a smile. “I just worry you'll miss me too much, you know?”

Max laughs, gives Chloe a playful shove. “Grow up,” she says, but as she watches Chloe fade from sight through the bus window, she thinks maybe they both grew up too fast.

* * *

Max doesn't forget to write.

Chloe signs all of her texts with xoxo<3.

 _No Emoji,_ Max always replies, a dopey smile tugging at her lips.

* * *

When Max gets back into town in early June, no one meets her at the bus station. Rather, her phone buzzes, and a text from Chloe flashes onto the screen.

_Welcome back to town, Mad Max. How was the Fury Road?_

Max finds herself smiling, involuntarily, as she texts back.

_not bad. no flame-shooting guitars, but a trucker flipped me off @ a gas station, so same diff :P_

Chloe's response comes a second later: _I'll let that emoji slide, but only cause I missed you._

A moment later, Chloe texts Max again: _Meet me at the lighthouse?_

 _There in 20,_ Max texts back, without hesitation.

In fact, Max is there in fifteen. She thanks the bus driver (local, this time, rather than greyhound) and starts up through the woods, a trip last made in darker times.

(Max can half smell the ozone, like death still clings to this place, but she shakes it away and sets eyes on the lighthouse)

When Max breaks out of the trees, the hilltop is drenched in sunlight, and there's Chloe lit up golden by the sun, sitting on that little wooden bench and staring out at the sea.

It is still a pretty picture, Chloe at the lighthouse, backlit by the sun, and even though Max has taken this shot before, she reaches for her camera.

Chloe turns around at the _click_ , grins broadly and launches herself upright. “Max!” she says, and Max is heart-squeezingly glad to see her, but all she can say is,

“You cut your hair.”

She did. Chloe's hair is buzzed at the sides, now, and shorter everywhere else too, the last of the blue dye trimmed away.

“Chopped off a couple inches, yeah,” Chloe says, reaching up to scratch at the stubble, and Max laughs, once, this bark of a laugh that feels all wrong in her throat.

She crosses the distance between them at a jog, hugs Chloe hard.

“Missed you too, dork.” Chloe says, sounding kind of breathless, and Max leans back to see a rare, honest smile on Chloe's face, lopsided, her eyes crinkled at the corners.

They're _close_ , again, so close that Max can see the faint sun-freckles Chloe gets every summer, brushed barely-there across the bridge of her nose.

“Chloe,” Max says, feeling small, feeling like she missed Chloe too much for being apart a week, feeling like-

Feeling like she wants to _kiss_ Chloe, beautiful Chloe, Chloe with short blonde hair in the early summer sun.

“Can I-” Max's throat is tight and her heart is beating so fast she thinks maybe Chloe can hear it, but Chloe's still leaning close, still smiling softly, and when she laughs, Max can feel it in her chest.

“I dunno Caulfield, _can_ you?” Chloe says, and Max says,

“You dork,” and leans in. Hesitates a second to give Chloe time to pull away, and then they are kissing.

It is not the best kiss in the world, Max is sure, but she thinks it's probably somewhere in the top five.

Chloe is so _warm_ from the sunlight, and she smells like rust and soap and cigarettes, and she is Max's favorite person in the whole world.

Max reaches up to cup Chloe's cheek, and Chloe _shudders_ when Max moves to scrape her fingers over the buzzed side.

They break apart, both a little out of breath, Max's hand still in Chloe's hair, and Chloe laughs- this soft, fragile sort of laugh- and leans her forehead against Max's, smiling ear-to-ear.

“I like your new haircut,” is all Max can think to say. Chloe's answering chuckle is so _quiet,_ full of delight and wonder, and she leans in for another kiss.

“If this is the response I get, I should cut my hair more often,”

Max laughs then, too, feeling helium-light, feeling like a soap bubble's just spun itself in her chest.

“Nah,” she says. “You're good.”

“ _We're_ good,” Chloe corrects, softly, and they are.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this like ten thousand years ago but I never typed it up till now so. Here is some fluffy bullshit I guess. Con/Crit welcome.


End file.
